FEATURES AND NEWS
The EPA has recognized Nissan with three new Energy Star awards, including the 2013 Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence Award, the highest honor for energy efficiency. Since becoming an Energy Star partner in 2006, Nissan has saved more than 800 billion BTUs of the energy used to assemble ... Read more »
SynapSense Corporation, a provider of data center infrastructure management (DCIM), and data center interconnection company Equinix employed SynapSense’s Environmental Monitoring and Active Control in a study that found savings of more than 8 million kWh, equivalent to $1.3 million annually, for the Equinix Singapore data center. The data center cooling ... Read more »
BMW Manufacturing expanded its hydrogen fuel-cell material handling equipment across its 4-million-sq-ft production facility in Spartanburg, SC. In 2010, BMW completed the installation of a hydrogen storage and distribution area near the plant’s Energy Center to power about 100 pieces of fuel cell material handling equipment. Since that time, the ... Read more »
Some air purifying technology originally developed by NASA could eventually purify the air in buildings so much that it would drastically reduce the need to replace air, which in turn would result in big energy savings. Martin Mittelmark, CEO of Phytofilter Technologies, explained that NASA was researching how plants purify ... Read more »
Green Deal – The Green Deal
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The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative cap-and-trade program raised $105.9 million for green reinvestment from its latest allowance auction, the program has announced. Some 37,835,405 CO2 allowances were sold at the auction, held March 13, at a clearing price of $2.80. The nine Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states that participate in the program ... Read more »
In his State of the Union address, Obama said he would take executive actions “to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy” if Congress didn’t act. Earlier this month Obama nominated Gina McCarthy, currently the assistant ... Read more »
The cost to business of participating in the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program and Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program outweigh the benefits, according to a Government Accountability Office report, summarized by the Hill. The costs include a bureaucratic application progress and reputation risks, following negative publicity around the Solyndra ... Read more »
GNP Company’s chicken processing plant in Minnesota captures and reuses about one-third of its daily water use using membrane bioreactor technology in its water treatment facility. The MBR technology, which saves between 400,000 to 500,000 gallons of treated, reclaimed water every day at the plant, helped GNP earn the 2013 ... Read more »
Moving to sensor-controlled fluorescent lighting in 2005 helped save Tom’s 250,000 kilowatt-hours of energy per year. The company is also planning to cut normalized carbon emissions from its transportation by just over 20 percent by 2020, from 163 kg CO2 per ton of product delivered in 2011 to 130 kg ... Read more »
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Where Should Accountability End Another suggestion from those in attendance was that there should be equity in business operations, that no one be exploited through the operations of the company – but how would such impacts be evaluated across all legal and social levels, and where does accountability end? Would ... Read more »
Owens Corning, BASF and TenCate Advanced Composites have agreed to work together to develop thermoplastic composites for the mass production of automobiles in an effort to make vehicles lighter and more fuel efficient. Under the strategic alliance, BASF will contribute its knowledge of producing and formulating thermoplastic resins, TenCate Advanced ... Read more »
A new open-source tool aims to give managers a step-by-step roadmap on how to effectively build and roll out sustainable agriculture sourcing strategies. Sustainable Sourcing of Agricultural Raw Materials, a Practitioner’s Guide, developed by Swiss-based business school IMD, the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform and five other global organizations, advises managers to ... Read more »
Imagine plugging in your smartphone for thirty seconds and then continuing the rest of your day with a fully charged phone. Then imagine plugging in your electric vehicle for less time it takes to fill up a standard gas tank before running a day’s worth of errands on that single ... Read more »
Southern states are interested in energy efficiency — but they want a neutral source of information they can trust about what activities and behavior changes best suit their needs and industries, according to a report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. In producing Trusted Partners: Everyday Energy Efficiency ... Read more »
Germany-based ThyssenKrupp Elevator offers two recent examples of elevator upgrades saving energy and money for companies. The modernization of two elevators in the 20-story Hyatt Place Hotel Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, resulted in a significant increase in building efficiency. In a “Geared to Gearless” modernization conducted by ThyssenKrupp Elevator, ... Read more »
WattStopper has launched an electric lighting control technology for daylight harvesting that it says produces better control of electric lighting as well as improved energy and cost savings. According to the company, the LMLS-600 dual-loop photosensor control is the first device on the market to combine open-loop and closed-loop photo ... Read more »
Greensmith Energy Management Systems says it is now providing distributed energy storage systems to 14 customers, including eight electric utilities. In 2011, Washington, DC-based Greensmith reached its largest scale yet through the sale of its first MW-sized system. Specifically, a major California utility purchased a 1.5 MWh Greensmith distributed energy ... Read more »
Mobile buyback and recycling company e-Cycle has launched an online tool that buys used mobile phones and tablets and pays consumers for their used devices while deleting data and recycling the e-waste. The company purchases more than 150 types of mobile phones and tablets, issuing a check or PayPal payment ... Read more »
Electricity rates for about 90,000 San Francisco ratepayers could almost double if the San Francisco Board of Supervisors goes forward with a deal for Shell Oil to provide 100 percent renewable energy for the city, according to NBC Bay Area. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has strongly criticized ... Read more »
Having achieved an 18 percent reduction in water consumption since 2008, the UK’s Co-operative Group grocery chain has pledged to reduce the water consumption across its operations by 30 percent by 2014 over 2006 levels, as it launches its latest Ethical Plan. The Co-operative Group Ethical Plan 2013-15 also sets ... Read more »
Dow Chemical, which was named the Official Carbon Partner of the XXII Olympic Winter Games, plans to mitigate the carbon footprint of the Sochi 2014 Games using its energy-efficient technologies. Dow will apply its technology to target areas, such as building infrastructure, industry and agriculture within Russia. Improvements may include ... Read more »
Shell must provide a detailed plan addressing safety and operational issues that thwarted its efforts to extract oil in the Arctic Ocean last year if it wants to resume drilling off the coast of Alaska, the Interior Department said. Shell has already announced that it will not return to the Arctic ... Read more »
The Global Reporting Initiative Guidelines now rank among the most widely recognized corporate social responsibility instruments among large European companies, according to new research published by the European Commission. In a survey of the public CSR statements of 200 randomly selected large companies, the GRI Guidelines were referred to by ... Read more »
ChargePoint Inc. announced the first of more than 80 electric vehicle charging stations it will install in New York, through a $1 million incentive from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. The project’s first EV charging station is at Battery Park City’s Solaire residential development, developed in ... Read more »